No Higher Form of Praise

When people call me a geek, I take the moniker with pride and own it. I can think of nothing nobler than having a passion towards science, technology, engineering or mathematics (STEM). These are the fields upon which all of modern society is built, and all other fields obtain their advances.

I feel it is one of my core duties as a father to install that passion in my girls. I am exposing them to science, and technology at every opportunity. I also am proudly watching my oldest daughter obtain a healthy, natural talent for mathematics. My bubbly, glittery, overly-talkative 7 year old girl who was talking full sentences at 1 year old has been doing basic multiplication and division while she struggles with writing and reading. The complete opposite of what I envisioned her skillset to be.

She is well ahead of what they are teaching in class. I have been teaching her at home, and it’s a lot of fun watching her skills blossom.

Why Are Leaves Green in the Summer, but not in the Fall?

Setup

Mashing and Cutting

Cooking

Outcome

Ok, it ended in total failure, and I have no idea why. I remember doing this experiment as a child and it working perfectly. I set the jars out to let the alcohol dry, but when it was all said and done, all that was on the coffee filter strips was a thin green line. No yellow, no red… nothing else.

So we’ll try again next weekend and perhaps do a better job of mashing up the leaves. I just let the girls rip the leaves apart into tiny shards, but this time I’ll get them to mash it all up into a paste.

Regardless, they both had fun with the experiment and I at least got to explain to them why the coffee filter absorbed the green chlorophyll via the alcohol.

About Steve

I am a technologist, and have been ever since 1980 when I got my very first TRS-80 and programmed it to do my math homework. I love to share the gift of technology with others and show them the wonderful things it can do for them, and how they should not fear it, but embrace it.